DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker at I.M. Terrell High School tells it — and it's a story worth telling right. We're in Fort Worth, 1882.
The school system opens its very first free public school for black students. They call it the East Ninth Street Colored School, and it is exactly what it sounds like — a beginning. A foothold.
One of the four teachers named to staff it is a young man from Grimes County named Isaiah Milligan Terrell, born in 1859, which means he's barely past twenty when he walks through that door. One of the first four black teachers in Fort Worth. Let that settle for a moment.
Then keep going, because this story does. By 1906, the school has moved — a property trade with the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad lands it at the corner of East Twelfth Street and Steadman, and it gets a new name: North Side Colored School No. 11. Isaiah Milligan Terrell is named principal, and he serves in that role until 1915.
In between, a 1909 bond election comes through with funds for a new building, and that building opens in May of 1910. Now, somewhere along the way, Terrell had also built a life outside those school walls. In 1883 he married Marcelite Landry — described on the marker as a respected music teacher — and you get the sense of two serious people building something serious together.
Then 1915 arrives, and Terrell steps into a new role entirely: President of Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College, the institution now known as Prairie View A&M University. He goes on to become an active leader in Houston's black community. He dies in 1931.
Six years after his death, in 1921 — well, let me back up — the school at Twelfth and Steadman had already been renamed I.M. Terrell High School in 1921, in honor of its former principal. Then in 1938, that building becomes a Junior High and Elementary, and Terrell High School moves to its present location at 1411 East 18th Street, the site of a former white elementary school.
That detail sits quietly in the marker text, but it's worth pausing on — the geography of a city shifting, space changing hands, a school named for a Black man who helped build Fort Worth's public education system from the ground up now occupying ground that once excluded the very students he served. Isaiah Milligan Terrell started as one of four teachers. He ended up with a high school bearing his name.
Fort Worth put that in stone, and Duane figured you ought to hear it.
What the marker says
In 1882, the Fort Worth school system opened its first free public school for black students, called "East Ninth Street Colored School." It was moved to the corner of East Twelfth Street and Steadman in a property trade with the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad in 1906, and renamed "North Side Colored School No. 11." Isaiah Milligan Terrell was named principal and served until 1915. A 1909 bond election provided funds for a new building, which opened in May 1910. In honor of its former principal, the school was named "I.M. Terrell High School" in 1921. The school at twelfth and Steadman became a Junior High and Elementary in 1938, when Terrell High School was moved to its present location at 1411 E. 18th Street, site of a former white elementary school. Isaiah Milligan Terrell was born in Grimes County in 1859. Named one of the first four black teachers in Fort Worth in 1882, he served as principal and supervisor of black schools. He was married in 1883 to Marcelite Landry, a respected music teacher. Terrell became President of Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University) in 1915, and later became an active leader in Houston's black community. He died in 1931.